As the latest Gators fill UF’s “residence hall rooms,” alumni recall the decades of pranks and perspiration, landlines and lofts.

by Barbara Drake (MFA ’04), with contributions from UF alumni

Broward. Beaty. Buckman. Murphree. Jennings.

These and other residence hall names evoke vivid memories among the legions of Gators who have lived on campus over the last 116 years.

From the thrills of move-in day to the agonies of finals week, dorm rooms — now called “residence hall rooms” — are where students study, sleep, eat, hang out, fall in love (and break up) and gradually achieve independence, step by wobbly (mis)step.

Today’s undergraduates might deck out their cribs with Instagram-worthy cushioned headboards, big-screen TVs and Keurig coffee makers, but back in the day, Gators made do with more spartan digs. Cinderblock walls were spruced up with a few posters, linoleum floors remained bare (what area rug?) and “extras” consisted of stacked milk crates or the one electronic device few ‘80s/’90s students could live without: an answering machine.

Stylish curtains were less a priority than working window cranks: until the early 1990s, many UF dorm rooms didn’t have air conditioning.

“Heck, yeah, it was hot,” remembered Ed Drannbauer (BSA ’97, MS ’07, PHD ’10) recently on Facebook. “I was in Rawlings ’92 to ’93. That was the last year before they installed AC in the rooms.”

“Those of us who lived in Rawlings are made different!” quipped Andrea Agosta (BSESS ’94).

Despite these limitations — or maybe because of them — Gators frequently formed strong, even lifelong, friendships with their dormmates.

“My roommate and I were total strangers,” wrote Lisa Brady Hamberg (BSAdv ’85), who lived with Lisa Brand Peery (BSMEng ’86) in Murphree Hall in the early 1980s. “We are still friends 40 years later, and we just got together with two other Murphree dorm friends in July for a reunion!”

These candid alumni photos will transport you to UF dorm life in years gone by, from wall-mounted room phones and crazy pranks to DIY lofts, dial-up modems and finding true love on move-in day.

The Luxury of the Landline

The big news on campus in the late 1960s and early ‘70s was the installation of wall-mounted phones in dorm rooms. Students could make free local calls and were billed for long distance.

Photo courtesy Sherri Gilbert

Sherri Gilbert (BAArt ’76) is shown here taking a call in her third-floor Broward room in 1971. “I think the caller must have been a date from the lobby,” she writes. “I usually didn’t wear my very straight hair like that!” She adds: “Our number was one digit off from Florida Blue Key’s, and we got their calls a lot.” Education major Theresa Rogero Ferlisi (BAEd ’73), who lived in No. 5 Rawlings from 1969 to 1970, remembers dialing local sandwich shops for takeout, talking with her parents and having long chats with her boyfriend in Jacksonville, facilitated by the phone’s lengthy cord. “When we got calls that lasted a while, we’d sit out in the hallway with the door closed,” she recalls. UF removed the room landlines in summer 2007; by then, most Gators owned cell phones.

The Elaborate Prank

In winter 1970, Theresa Rogero Ferlisi (BAEd ’73) concocted a scheme to prank fellow Rawlings residents Nordi Sternberg Lupinacchi (BSPT ’73) and Pat Maguire (BA ’73). Ferlisi enlisted her roommate Karen Suhrer Militana (BA ’72) and other friends to gather stacks of the Alligator and the Gainesville Sun. On a Saturday night when Lupinacchi and Maguire were out on a double date, the pranksters – Ferlisi, Militana, Mary Hill and Linda Brandon Dingee — sprang into action. They spent hours filling the two women’s third-floor room, floor to ceiling, with crumpled newspapers. “Then we had to wait for them to come home sometime after midnight,” Ferlisi remembers. “When they opened the door, they thought it was hilarious. Then we all jumped in and frolicked in the mess. We had a blast!” Ferlisi captured the frivolity on her Brownie Flashmite 20 camera.

Loft-y Plans

Photo courtesy Susan Caswell

One way to increase usable space is to raise a twin bed on a bunk-bed platform and eliminate the lower bunk, a practice known as “lofting.” Today most UF residence beds are built to facilitate lofting, but in earlier decades, students had to improvise solutions, with UF Housing’s permission. Susan Caswell (BA ’84, MA ’87) shared this photo of friends hanging out in her custom-built loft the year “Urban Cowboy” came out in theaters (note the cowboy hat). “I’m not in the pic because I took it, but this is from Tolbert Hall, second floor (women’s floor), 1980,” wrote Caswell. “Back when we could build lofts in the rooms (and cover them with awesome brown shag carpet). Do they still allow that?”

Sigma Sweetheart

Photo courtesy Kamelya Hinson

Now a senior communicator for the CDC, Kamelya Hinson (BSTel ’90) embraced the power of visual messaging in 1983, when this photo was taken. She decorated her shared room in Tolbert Hall with “Cathy” and mouse-and-cheese posters featuring inspirational messages. The “Sigma” on her shirt signifies her status as a Sigma sweetheart for Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. “They called us ‘Sigma Doves,’” she said. “It was like having a network of big brothers who always had my back. My fondest memory was when we went to assisted living centers and visited with seniors. Some would cry when we left. Being a Sigma sweetheart made a big campus seem much smaller. We are still connected over 30 years later.”

Fooooood Fight!

Things got out of hand when Beaty Tower roommates Elaine Fisher (BA ’82) and Rebecca Gross (BA ’85) celebrated their birthdays in July 1981.

Photo courtesy Aimee Bert-Moreno

The two women were born one day apart and held a joint party with triple-mate Aimee Bert-Moreno (BSA ’96) and education major Brad Burklew (BAE ’85, EDS ’96, MEd ’86). “We were celebrating, and it ended up being a cake fight,” explained Bert-Moreno, who is wearing pink pants in the picture. “I’m the one in white,” Fisher added on Facebook. “We are all still friends and have great memories of living together. We even all signed up after that summer to live three of us squished in Hume Hall. There are many stories we can’t reveal lol.”

The “Two Lisas”

Lisa Brand Peery (BSMEng ‘86), left, and Lisa Brady Hamberg (BSAdv ‘85), right, were total strangers when they roomed together in Murphree in 1981. The two Lisas quickly bonded and are still friends 40 years later; in July they got together on Vero Beach with two other Murphree friends for a long-delayed reunion. “We had not been together as a group since my wedding in 1995!” said Hamberg, whose son, Jacob Hamberg, is now a UF student. This 1981 photo shows Peery and Hamberg’s orderly study area, complete with “Gators ’81,” “Give ‘Em Hell Pell” and “I Eat Skeeter’s Big Biscuits” stickers.

Fated to be BFFs

Photo courtesy Francine Katz

Julie (Mislow) Abes (BA ’91), left, and Francine (Halushka) Katz (BSPR ’91), right, discovered they shared the same last four digits of their social security numbers when they roomed together in Broward Hall in 1987; they’ve remained best friends to this day, says Katz. With their big hair, big smiles and shared enthusiasm for actor Rob Lowe, these Gators epitomized the spirit of 1987. Tunes that hit No. 1 that fall included Michael Jackson’s “Bad”; “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes; “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” by U2; “La Bamba,” by Los Lobos; and “I Think We’re Alone Now,” by Tiffany.

“My mom was stalling and trying not to leave”

Rob Yormack (BSBA ’95) claimed his turf in Trusler Hall on move-in day in fall 1991.

Photo courtesy Rob Yormack

More than 30 years later, he can still recall the milestone experience: “My feelings were probably a lot like everyone else’s — a little nervous, a little excited, a little bewildered, a little numb. When this picture was actually taken, my mom was lingering, stalling and trying not to leave. I was growing annoyed. A generation later, after moving my kids into their dorms, I understood a lot better.” Yormack lived on campus for several years, making “plenty of friendships and, thankfully, a lot more near trouble than actual trouble.”

A Room with a Boom

Built in 1961, Jennings Hall is named for May Austin Mann Jennings (1872-1963), a conservationist and a pioneer in Florida’s highway beautification efforts.

Photo courtesy Nadja Kadenbach Brunner

Nadja Kadenbach Brunner (BA ’96) snagged a leafy window view in Jennings when she roomed there in summer 1991 with Michelle Dennehy (BSJ ’96). Like many students then, Brunner brought her boom box with her. “That summer I became aware of the music of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as other alternative bands such as Jane’s Addiction and the Smashing Pumpkins,” she remembers. “That’s probably what we listened to on that boom box and certainly in dance clubs like TJ’s.”

You’ve Got Mail

Photo courtesy Dara Knox

By the late 1990s, rising numbers of students were bringing personal computers to campus, a hefty investment considering a Dell Dimension XPS cost around $4,000 back then. Between 1997 and 1999, nearly all UF residence halls were wired for DHNET, UF’s Department of Housing high-speed Ethernet computer access network, which cost $60 a semester to access. Dara (Reinhold) Knox (BSAg ’03, MSPH ’05) was a freshman in 1999 when this photo was snapped of her in North Hall; seated beside her on the top bunk is younger brother Robert Reinhold (BA ’07), who matriculated to UF four years later. “That’s my dad sitting at my desk with the computer,” she writes. “And my mom was the lady behind the lens!”

Moving in, for good

Simone (Kassianides) Behar (BSTel ’04) admits her life today would be very different if she hadn’t roomed in Beaty as a freshman. On move-in day in fall 2000, after lugging her computer and leopard-print comforter to her third-floor room, she attended an orientation meeting led by the RAs. There she met finance major Jose Behar (BSBA ’03, MS ’04). The two hit it off, as this 2000 photo shows (“I had an obsession with leopard print before it was actually cool,” she jokes); the pair have now been together for 22 years and married for 14. “I’ve included a family photo to show how far we’ve come,” she adds. “Still Gator fans and hope our girls, Lily and Ava, follow in our footsteps!”

A Hume Hall Love Story

“Our love story began in Hume Hall,” writes Anne Wise Myers (BSISEng ’07, MS ‘08). Anne first saw Hume Hall under construction during her summer Preview session. She was among the first to live in the “New Hume” when it opened as the honors dorm in 2002. She met Jason Myers (BSMSEng ’07, MS ’08, PHD ’11) there when they moved onto the same floor in 2003; six years later, they married in Gainesville. Between the two of them, they earned two bachelor’s degrees, two master’s degrees and a doctorate in engineering (Jason), all from UF. Who says falling in love distracts from studying?